CHAPTER SEVEN ✹
Out of Your League.

  𝕬LEX was drunk. Again.

  In all honesty, he spent all of freshman year drunk—on some iron lung or other. He couldn't remember most of it. Cheap vodka splashed with cheap mixers, off-white straight lines cut by a frat guy's credit card, bumps from gritty dorm-keys, the thrill of kissing a complete stranger. It got to a point where he didn't even know who he was doing it all for. Not his mother, who had the same bad habit of sinking her canines into sweet things and never knowing when enough was enough. Certainly not his dad—who would spit with shame if he only knew. And Magda hated all that stuff. Alex never missed it, the subtle narrow of her eyes and curled distaste of her mouth. She'd never linger around long enough for the blown pupils, because she knew it meant he'd soon be murmuring all sorts of pretty lies against her collarbone, the shell of her ear, the softest parts of her that she was sick of him hurting. It wasn't for himself. The overturned stomach the morning after, some girl in his bed who looked at him with apathy and eyes so unlike the ones he fell in love with at sixteen, the migraines, grovelling to Ward for extra cash when all his collected in wads in the jeans pocket of some Chad or Jake.

  As a sophomore, he mellowed out the tiniest bit. He was less reluctant to take drugs off of strangers, and he didn't get drunk alone in his dorm anymore. But Alex still hadn't found his limit, and was unsure if he'd ever find it. He's tethered by all these tiny strings—being drunk, they unravel like ribbons, and he could breathe a little easier. The strings—his sisters, his mother, his girl—they slipped through his fingers as if water. And in the morning, he was all tied up again. Ropes, noose-like around his throat; marionette threads, folding his spine. So, when the sun left him—literally and figuratively (Magda's always been a bit like sunshine)—he got drunk again. It's a relapsing habit. He's always been a bit too much like his mother; Alex figured that's why he was his father's favourite son.

  "Damn, bro—look at you." It was guffawed out. Insolent and boyish. Alex didn't even need to see the frosted-tips to recognise the lofty voice of Sarah's boyfriend. "Dude, it's not even five o'clock."

  "Fuck you, Topper," Alex slurred, knocking back the last dregs of his rum and coke. A blur of a black waistcoat flurried past, and Alex clicked his fingers snobbishly. "Hey, uh—can I get another one of these—yeah—put it on Cameron—"

  "Whoa, Alex, are you sure you should—"

  Alex raked his eyes back to Topper Thornton, mouth twisting into a cruel sneer. "Are you still here?"

  "You're wasted," Topper laughed in disbelief. Brushing off Alex's contempt as if it was just a side-effect of drunkenness, he slid into the wicker chair across from him at the patio table. "Bro, listen, if your old man sees you like this..."

  "What the fuck do you know about my old man, huh? Because you're screwing my sister?"

  Topper grimaced at that, recoiling into himself. "Dude. Not cool."

  "You're insufferable," Alex drawled. He dragged his gaze over the wraparound porch of the Island Club, surrounded by toffee-nosed businessmen and their socialite wives, but his waiter was nowhere to be seen. "Where the fuck is this guy? I asked...asked for a fucking—"

  "Do you want me to take you home?" Topper interjected, craning his neck to shove his face in Alex's line of vision. Hatred curled around in his belly, serpentine. "Because I will, dude, if that's what you need. I mean, shit, Alex, you're gone, man."

  Alex scrunched his eyes shut, massaging the sting in his temple with two fingers. "Oh my god, shut up. Please. Where's my fucking drink?"

  "You're cut off."

  It's as though a light switched on somewhere, in the darkest, ugliest part of him. His back straightened so fast that the tendons in him yank as taut as a clothesline. She's stood there, cut from the delicate fabric of the longing dreams from back at college—the ones where he'd wake up reeling, sweat collected in the hollow basin of his clavicle, the tufts of hair on the nape of his neck, and the sunken pillow he shared with a girl who must've resembled her last night, but all that was gone in the morning.

  Her mouth was slanted into an awful, disgruntled frown, teeth bared behind it—pearl bone and forlorn, because she hates the very marrow of him these days, and Alex couldn't blame her for that. A backpack was slung over her shoulder, the small pocket of it patched with a litany of pins and stickers, and her box braids were tied back in a periwinkle kerchief. Her shift was done. Her shift was over, and she was stood here, in front of him—over him—and she looked so sick of it all. Disgusted by him, almost. The way her pupils didn't dilate the way they used to—lovingly, sweetly, the hickory of her irises long gone, only this malignant warmth that infected the most cancerous pockets of rot in him. It's enough to make bile crawl its way up his throat and sit there, heavy enough to convince Alex that it was here to stay, in a way that Magda never would be again.

  "Cut—cut off?" Was all he could stammer.

  God, he's pathetic.

  "Yes," said Magda bluntly, bracing her bag tighter. "My boss thinks you're scaring off the regulars."

  Topper, of course, butted in. "Hey, sorry, do you know who this is? This is Ward Cameron's son. The Ward Cameron."

  "Thanks for that," she replied dryly. "Regardless, he's cut off."

  "I'm not sure you understand me—"

  Alex cut him a brutal glare. "Topper. Fuck off."

  "Sorry, man—sue me—for trying to help, yeah?" Hands surrendering, Topper slipped out of his chair and spared a glance at Magda's apron in a way that suggested she was about as human as a gnat on a windowsill to him. "I hope you get home safe, Alex. Really."

  "Sweet kid," Magda mused, looking over her shoulder as Topper returned to a table with his grandfather.

  "He dates my sister," mumbled Alex, a little shamefully. He stared at the hollow glass in front of him, like calls to like.

  Magda's smile was toying, a bit more like the expressions he was used to. "Well, I know you don't mean Iris."

  "Am I actually cut off, or is that you just spiting me?" he snarled then.

  "I don't spite you, Alex."

  "Yeah. Sure, Mags."

  A sick tremble of self-satisfaction trickled through him at her flinch. 'Mags.' How long's it been since he called her that?

  "You are cut off," she said with a slow nod, "because I said so. You're embarrassing yourself. And I know as well as you what your dad will do if it gets back to him that you spent the entire afternoon here making an idiot of yourself."

  "Oh, fuck—"

  "Fuck you too, Alex. How's that?"

  Bitterly, Magda shook her head and let a scoff roll easily off her tongue. Her eyes tore over the fresh, barren lawn, so green and groomed—in a week, it'll be a dance floor for the Midsummers guests, and she'll be nursing their egos with gauche compliments and strong liquor all night. A souvenir of all her grudges built up like plaque, a lump in her throat, as she thought about serving Alex drinks—some kook on his arm, a vision in fuchsia satin, all bronze and pearly. Something in her seethed at that. Magda felt feral, and animalistic, and primally jealous. A younger version of herself, that souvenir, scratched at her ribs until it left a messy picture carved into the marrow: of the girl who cried every single night for an entire month after he left for Princeton.

  Yeah. Fuck Alex Cameron.

  "C'mon," she spat, moving to turn.

  Alex blinked at her; doleful and helpless. "What?"

  "I'm dropping off some booze to the boneyard for your sister, and then I'm dropping you off home."

  "My sister?" he garbled as she snatched a ringed around his bicep and yanked him to his feet. "Why would you...—Iris?"

  "Princess Sarah can afford her own, and Pheebs is seven, so, yeah—Iris."

  As Magda trailed him along like a pathetic dog on a leash, envy scratched at his insides with bloody, familiar nails. It was a certain pang that he carried around with him like second nature, but now it's reaching parts of him he didn't think existed. Magda had always been only his—a strip of sunlight that didn't belong to Iris Soleil; a stranger to the boys back at Kildare Academy, who longed for the daughters of lawyers; untouched by his father's greedy; not as beloved by his mother as her sister's friends all were. Magda was his, singularly his. For so long, nobody could say that.

  Realistically, Magda and Iris were always aware of each other. Iris had spent so many nights over at the Heywards, studying with Pope when the others were off catching waves and tans, that Alex wasn't ignorant enough to think that his sister would never trickle the slightest bit into the warmest part of his life. But he didn't think for a second, after leaving for college, that he'd return to his sister stealing Magda from him, too. The best thing he ever had, and of course Iris Soleil had to sink her teeth into that as well. He's always been this boy of fatherly wounds, but he always had his sister there to suture them with spite. Alex felt boyish, Cain-like, and pathetic—but nothing in the world belonged to him.

  "Am I really gonna have to buckle you in, too?"

  He was in the passenger side of Magda's derelict car, and he couldn't help but think of better times spent here. It still carried the heavy scent of her perfume—almond, patchouli, vetiver—and her grandmother's rosary beads hung in the rearview mirror. There was no longer any debris of bad habits in the footwell, or white powder dusting the dashboard. A water bottle in the middle console and a sweatshirt thrown onto the backseat, instead.

  Was her life really so better without him in it?

  A roughness collected in the back of his throat, and Alex glanced at her, still stood outside, eyeing him impatiently. "Uh, no," he rasped, "I got it."

  "Great."

  Unceremoniously, Magda shut the door in his face and stalked around to the driver's side. Coughing, Alex buckled up as she jammed the keys into the ignition.

  They left the country club in the dust and sat in this swelling, uncomfortable silence. Silences with Magda never used to be this. There'd always be music, softening out the ugliness of the island surrounding them; the tender lull of cicadas and grasshoppers; a peace in him left there by her touch. But she didn't reach for the radio, nor his hand—it was punishment, almost. She wanted him to sit in this silence, marinate in it, digest all his wrongdoings. Maybe she thought he didn't think about it as often as she did—a shortcoming, on her part (a rare one, he thought dangerously). He thought about her all the time. The blade of sentimentality reached vein every single time Alex took it from behind his back to glare into the silver regret of it.

  Mercy wasn't a kindness he was often granted. Not from his parents, not from Iris Soleil, not Magda—not even himself.

  The sky was kissed by tangerine and afterglow, and the buzz was leaving Alex as the island rolled by the windows. His skin felt closer to the bone and his sight wasn't as tempered. Everything was brittle, and Alex Cameron existed in two extremes—depraved yearning and utter apathy.

  "I didn't know you and Iris talked like that," he mumbled finally, the itch to fill the silence overwhelming.

  "Well, you know," said Magda briefly, "she's friends with Pope. Best friends."

  Alex knew this. "Yeah, but...—"

  "But I wasn't before? Yeah, funny what changes in two years, isn't it?" Her eyes were on the road, but Alex was sure that they were narrowed in hatred. "Don't get throwing up in my car, by the way. I'll charge your dad for the valet."

  "I won't..." Alex's face went hot with shame, "m'not gonna..."

  "Just tell me if you feel sick. I'll pull over."

  He squinted at her. "Yeah? Will you hold my hair back, too?"

  "Fuck you, Alex," Magda seethed. "Don't try and be cute."

  A laugh split through him, making his guts churn, and her teeth grit. "I'm not trying to—"

  "Also," she cut in savagely, "you can tell your no-good brother to leave Tabitha the fuck alone. I'm sick of him—infecting everything good. He's an infection. A—a good-for-nothing—infectious—"

  "Rafe?" Alex asked. When contempt hardened her features, he shook his head, and let it roll off his tongue easier than anything, "I don't talk to Rafe anymore, Mags. Hell, I don't even—"

  "Okay. It's whatever, then. I don't really care. It's just Tabitha I'm bothered about."

  "Tabs? What? What's he doing to—"

  "I'm sure it's not that hard to figure out, Alex," she said maliciously. "Whatever. It's fine. You left, so it's not even your responsibility. I shouldn't have brought it up."

  Alex frowned and tore his eyes off her, staring at his lap.

  Tabitha Cross was Magda's best friend—an old friend of Alex's, too. This doe-eyed girl who lost her brother, lost herself, and found Alex's half-brother in the middle of it all. Rafe's belligerent; an addict—he loved just like their dad did, and Alex tried warning Magda when it all started unravelling that Rafe would end up killing her best friend, but nothing was getting through to Tabitha back then. Last summer, Alex heard from a friend of a friend that Tabitha had landed herself in the hospital after a nasty overdose, and her mother had sent her to the mainland, right for some fancy rehab facility outside of Charleston. It was around then when Alex started mellowing out. Tabitha was fawnlike, sure, but had tougher skin than him and even less to lose. He had Phoebe back home, waiting on him—he had Magda, who would no doubt rather cut her hands off than reach for him again, but he liked to think that she was still there for whenever he fixed himself. If Tabitha could almost lose herself to it all, so could he.

  But Alex did wonder what became of her and his brother. Rafe's obsessive, and Rafe's cruel, and Rafe left traces on everything he ever touched. What did he do to Tabitha, when she tried escaping—getting better, getting out? The hunger of his brother might still kill her yet, and it only served as another stab of punishment to Alex's sore spots. He had left so many people behind when he went to college. The guilt will gnaw away at every part of him one day, he was sure of it.

  He thought, briefly, if that's why Magda brought Tabitha up. To grieve those times—that have left his lungs black with ash, twin grapes of tarred rot, and his heart sore with grief. They weren't halcyon days. Back then, the four of them—Alex, his brother, and the doe-eyed girls they were butchering—were nervous and tender, but shattered everything around them. He's still bleeding from the wounds of that summer; he's pretty sure it's a haemorrhage that they all share, the blood carrying to the same red river, rare and sweet, infected with love and other drugs.

  Alex got Magda's choice of words now, when she described Rafe. She called him infectious. Alex supposed that's all his half-brother was: a cancer. He bet that her opinion of him didn't differ too far, either, and it rendered him fairly sick to think about.

  "I'm sorry," he spewed out; hoarse, desperate—eating his own heart. "I'm sorry for leaving. I'm sorry for not trying harder to keep Tabitha away from him. I'm sorry for getting drunk. For always being drunk. For the drugs. I'm sorry for leaving you."

  For a moment, only silence existed. Alex knew very well he had just sunk his fingers into wounds that hadn't even scabbed over yet, but he kept them there.

  It's a bit like the quiet that came after his mother insisted they say grace at the kitchen table—because that's where all bad love begins. He's got his hands clasped in silent prayer, and he's digesting the best thing he'd ever had.

  Magda didn't flinch.

  "Fuck you, Alex."

  And they drove the rest of the way to the boneyard without a single word.

✹

  "𝖂hat is she doing here? Iris. Did you invite her?"

  Realistically, it probably hadn't been longer than five minutes, but it felt more like nobody had spoken a word to Iris since they got to the boneyard. She had been numbing the misfiring nerves in her with the musty beer from the pony keg, and was on about her fifth red solo cup of it—cheeks warm from sun-blood and tipsiness—sat on the amputated, oaken limb of a fallen tree with her feet buried in the sand, just up to her anklet.

  Now, Kiara's here. Her sweet friend. An angel, almost. She smelt of pistachios, tonka bean, saltwater, and the joint she had just been sharing with JJ. She's so familiar to Iris, so the sullen frown sending her brows inwards and mouth into a slant could only mean one thing. Iris didn't even have to turn to figure out who 'she' was—and who 'she' was with.

  "I didn't," swore Iris, cutting a glance further along the beach to where her sister was at the heart of her usual kooks—some friends of Iris, some the furthest from. Sarah, though, a sprightly breath of fresh air, all sunkissed skin and golden hair—the vision of her mother, sent to haunt Iris and Carmen. "I haven't spoken to her since school ended, and even then..."

  It went unsaid, but even then, it was meaningless back and forth about biology homework.

  Iris and Sarah didn't talk. It's sort of like a philosophy, now.

  The sunkissed sister was perched on the ladders of a lifeguard's lookout, staring out to the ocean with the wind in her hair and Topper Thornton at her feet, sweeping bleached bangs out of his eyes and looking like a Dutch architect with his choice of sunglasses. Around them, kooks. A supercilious pack of them; all familiar faces, only a few fond. Yves Kelce—or, simply, Kelce—was another haughty lackey of Rafe's, who thought Iris belonged on the Cut and nowhere near Kildare Academy, and made sure she never forgot it. He had an arm around his girlfriend, Talulah Applebaum; who was exactly the kind of girl you could imagine with a name like that. But, so laughably tone-deaf and generationally ignorant that Iris couldn't help but almost like her. Two more girls—Imogen 'Immie' Zhou and Marnie Aachari. The former was this straight-laced, lamblike girl, all Coco Mademoiselle and Burberry house-check, who Kiara swore was the spawn of satan—the kind of delicate antagonist that left her skin hive-like and itchy, but Iris knew better than anyone what that feeling was (it's jealousy, it was always jealousy). As for Marnie, Iris tried not to think about her too much.

  'Old friends,' was so tragic to say. The sickening kind of familiarity you only feel for a stranger who knows all of your secrets but no longer your current favourite song or how your room's changed since they last stepped inside it. Iris had a pretty good idea of why Marnie no longer was around—she took the whole kook/pogue rivalry way too seriously, and after her old man almost lost everything to a gambling problem, the idea of the Cut all became too real to her. So, Iris's association with it always left a bad taste in Marnie's mouth. She never really said it, but Iris figured she lingered around for as long as she did because she was half-expecting her to choose between the worlds she existed in. Of course, she chose Kiara, and Marnie chose Sarah.

  It haunted Iris most nights, what Kiara might've done if Sarah hadn't pushed her away—would she have left Iris, too?

  "You should go up to her," muttered Kiara bitterly, "you should go up to her, right now, and tell her to get off our side of the island."

  Iris scoffed. "Right. My dad would never speak to me again."

  "Isn't that what you want?"

  Kie's words hit a bit like a slap in the face, but Iris figured the question was rhetoric, so she let it fizzle and rot in the sand as pelicans swarmed a sea creature's carcass near the swell.

  "C'mon," said Kiara, her hand sweet as it latched around Iris's wrist and lifted her up from the tree branch, "let's find our boys."

  They peeled away; Kie off to the stoners, to JJ, and Iris to where she caught John B manning the keg's tap—he gave her a refill of foamy, lukewarm beer and smacked an obnoxious kiss against the top of her head. It's only been an hour, but the kegger was in full swing. She sort of liked when the beach was like this—the kooks with their perfect teeth didn't differ so much from the pogues, and it's mostly the sunburned tourists who stick out like sore thumbs, deers in headlights.

  Still paranoid from the morning's troubles—bloated corpse, the marsh wreckage, almost getting caught by Shoupe—Iris responsibly figured it was probably best not to join in on JJ's blunt rotation with Kiara and the pocket of ingenuous tourons they had attracted over. She rolled her eyes fondly at them when JJ and Kie frantically waved her over, ignoring their large gestures, and tried to look for Pope instead. He was pretty much where she expected him to be; on the seedy offshoot of a silver birch, clumsily hitting on a girl who looked like she was being held captive, skin peeling and dewy over her nose, expression pinched by confusion and mild terror at whatever Pope was rambling on about.

  "...—it's kinda weird when on TV, we see people die and they just kinda sit there, but in actuality, they would be shitting and farting up a storm."

  Yep. Blown it.

  The girl dipped her chin hollowly toward her sternum. "Right, well, I think I'm gonna...—"

  "Yup, I totally understand. Have a good day," said Pope, grimacing.

  The touron stood, sparing Iris a little glance—languaged by her wide eyes into a translation only a girl could really get: good luck. Iris grinned, sinking onto the branch where she had been sat, affectionately bumping her shoulder with Pope's sagged one. He offers her a meek, bashful smile, before snatching his beer from the sand and knocking back a large gulp.

  "That bad?" she laughed.

  "Well, you heard."

  "I did. And I agree with you—so unrealistic," Iris teased.

  Pope turned to her, eyes mirrorbright. "Exactly! All that sulphide, ammonia, and methane—it's, like, do these big movie companies never think to hire someone who actually knows what they're doing?"

  "And JJ says you don't know how to flirt," she said wryly.

  "You're making fun of me. Aren't you?"

  "Pontius, I would never!"

  His eyes narrowed. "Pontius wasn't a pope. He was a prefect of Judaea, and—" when her grin curled, Pope's grimace returned, "and you already know that."

  "Maybe," Iris granted, "but I also like it when you get all teacher with me."

  "You...—oh?"

  "There you two are! I've been looking all over!"

  Pope choked on his beer, emptying almost a mouthful of it into the sand before tossing the cup over his shoulder.

  "Chill, it's only Mag," said Iris dryly.

  "Yeah, Mag. My dad's second-in-command. She'll snitch, so pass your drink too—"

  "Oh, c'mon, baby brother," Magda drawled, moving to stand in front of them, a plastic bag dangling from the crook of her arm. "You don't seriously think that low of me, do you? It's a kegger. Lighten up. I ain't telling Pops nothing."

  Pope stared at her shrewdly. "I don't believe you."

  "Big sister's honour." She crossed a finger solemnly over her heart, and grinned crookedly at Iris. "Little Mariano, I come bearing gifts—and, also, a brother."

  "A—what?"

  "I didn't wanna come, trust me." Iris tilted her head. Alex, stood over her, frowning in sulkiness and a carton of orange juice tucked under his arm. "She forced me."

  "I didn't realise you two were friends," commented Pope warily.

  "We're not," Magda said hastily, taking a bottle of Tito's from the plastic bag, "but his bank account's heftier than mine. Ain't that right, Cameron?"

  Alex said nothing.

  "Whatever. I just need a drink," Iris mumbled, half miserably.

  She tipped the solo cup upside down, emptying the beer into the sand—narrowly missing Alex's trainers. He seethed, cruelty dormant on his tongue, but swallowed down as Magda turned to him, sharp and cautioning. Iris ignored all of it. Seeing her brother must've siphoned any gentle tipsiness she had, and she needed to get it back, fast. Without looking at him, she snaked out a hand, motioning for the orange juice, and he handed it her just as absently. At the sidelines, the Heywards share a long glance of collusion, but Iris didn't rise to the bait. Her drink was honestly more vodka than it was mixer, yet she stomached it down in roughly four gulps, before she's making another. A tiny bit dribbled down her chin, drying sticky and saccharine. It's not until the second cup was downed that she actually bothered wiping the residue away, and even then, it's with the back of her gaunt wrist.

  "Damn, Irie," Magda whistled, "don't know where you get that from."

  Alex scowled at her. "Ha, ha."

  "Are you all right, Irie?" Pope's tender, soft-hearted, and all too sweet for her night now. She almost regretted not going over to the stoners instead.

  "M'fine." Her throat stung.

  "Did you know that Sarah's here?" Alex asked, almost convincing her with the aloof act.

  Iris felt an eye twitch. "Yep."

  "Yeah? Well, did you speak to our sister? She mentioned earlier that—"

  "Pope, can you hear JJ calling us?"

  "Erm...no...—?"

  "No? Well, I can. C'mon, let's go find him." Her hold on his wrist was bruising and his grip on the bottle of Tito's that she slammed into his chest almost slipped as she tore him away from their older siblings. "Bye, Mag. Thanks for the booze."

  "Real smooth, Cameron," was the last thing she heard.

  "Your family's weird," muttered Pope, stumbling over his own feet, "like, super weird—"

  "Your sister's hooking up with my brother," Iris told him bluntly.

  "What?" Pope yelped. "What? She is? How do you—what—since when?"

  She lifted a shoulder in an absent shrug. "It's obvious. They're fucking each other."

  "How is that obvious? They don't even know each other. Do they?"

  "Well," Iris gestured back over her shoulder indignantly, "clearly, they do now."

  Pope buried the heels of his palms into his eyes. "This—no. No way. Magda wouldn't..." A retch doubled him over, "oh, God. I might puke."

  "Same."

  "Well. What do we do?"

  Iris looked at him weirdly. "What do you mean? We don't do anything. If your sister wants to ruin her life—"

  "Okay," Pope interjected, "your brother's not that bad, Iris. A little unstable, but he won't ruin her life."

  "You don't know my brother like I do."

  "Well, I know Magda. She's smarter than that. If he's bad news, then she'll run in the opposite direction."

  "You don't get it," she muttered bitterly, kicking a solo cup at her feet. "Alex, he's—he's manipulative, and cruel, and gets under your skin. He'll treat her badly and make her think he's the greatest guy ever. Mag deserves better."

  Pope, amazed, shook his head at her. "Irie, we don't even know for certain."

  "Oh, I know."

  "You're paranoid. Today's been a lot, you're on edge."

  When he realised that she wasn't even listening, Pope snatched her shoulders, shaking them, her. He looked at her with the kind of worried devotion that only he could really muster—her best friend with his good bones and good heart; a softness that only came with astuteness, she thought sometimes. She hoped more than anything that she'd never lose Pope Heyward and his good heart, that he'll linger in the door of her life even after he got sick of her.

  "We're meant to be lying low, remember? Acting normal."

  "I think assassinating my brother is pretty normal," she mumbled drolly, rolling her neck until her cheek smushed against his hand, still on her shoulder—tender now, sacred. His thumb lifted the slightest bit, just enough to sweep along the bridge of her nose, lingering on the imperceptible bump on the arch. Iris shivered. "Ugh. You're right. I'm being paranoid."

  Pope grinned, all teeth and warm. "Well, I usually am right. Nothing new there, y'know."

  "Yeah, yeah. Okay, Pontius. Let's lay low—" her eyes raked over to JJ, who's skinning up again, only alone this time; licking the rolling papers with an animated concentration furrowing his brows, "...or high?"

  "Terrible joke. Seriously. I should kill you. Put you out your misery."

  "Blah, blah, blah."

  The sun left them all behind as the marmalade hour of honeyed glow sunk into the horizon, swallowed whole by the sea. Soon, there's just stars, dark blue sky, and wispy, greyish clouds. The moon's out there too, Iris was sure, but she didn't go looking for it. All noise in her head was gone and there's only appetite—for more drink, for the touch of her friends, for laughter. They all learned about two years ago that Iris was a clingy drunk, smothering wet kisses onto cheekbones, and draping her arm around limp limbs like a doll with all the stuffing torn out. Not that any of them mind.

  Least of all JJ, who didn't flinch as much at touch when he was cross-faded. The weed did nothing for the dull ache he lived with in his lungs, but the beer had done plenty for the harsh edges of himself. After the sun plunged into the holy dark of the sea, seeking clean and absolution, he's glad for the way Iris clung. He held the joint to her mouth, and she's even delicate when smoking. His handshake with Pope, signature and theirs, flowed even easier. John B's hands, still calloused, don't grab his shoulders with the same urgency of a boy ravaged. And even Kiara's not on edge about the bad karma she was so convinced about earlier. JJ, a boy with very little belongings, felt like the richest man alive on nights like these—he's got empty pockets, a starving belly, but he's bloated by idealism and better things. Maybe, he's just mad.

  Granted, he definitely felt it a bit now. Starved, even. Feral, a bit rabid. It's been ten minutes since he last saw Iris, Pope, or Kie—out of boredom, he and John B took to experimenting with the weirdest drink combinations they could stomach without throwing up. Boys.

  Meanwhile, Kie's eyeing up Iris, all giggly and stumbling, like she's prime television.

  "...—Fuck, marry, kill: the boys."

  Iris hiccoughed. "The boys? Our boys?"

  "The very same."

  Pope blanched, palms facing in surrender. "M'out. Later."

  As he stalked off, Kie threw her head back with peal of bubbly laughter. Iris grinned at his retreating back as he went over to the keg, before tapping her chin in thought.

  "I actually don't know," she replied honestly. "I love them all. I'd mack all of 'em. How 'bout you?"

  "It's 'cause I love them that I wouldn't mack any," Kie retorted, slanting her a wry, knowing look.

  Iris shrugged. "What? Maybe not John B, 'cause that's almost, like, incest. But—why not? It's just Pope and JJ. They're, dunno, them."

  "You confuse me."

  "I mean, c'mon, Kie. Is your best friend really your best friend if you're not at least the tiniest bit in love with them?"

  Kiara's eyes went elsewhere. Not the boys she thought brothers—who eat mouldy bread, have her nurse their hangovers, feel like her troublesome sons. Further along the beach. To a girl in a pleated Burberry skirt.

  "I guess," she mumbled, but her heart's not in it. "I'm in love with you, at least. The tiniest bit." She pinched her fingers together and smirked at Iris's swooning. "But, you don't forget to put the toilet seat. And you smell like vanilla. And—"

  "All right, Carrera, pucker up."

  Kiara shoved her away. "We're in public!"

  Iris laughed, letting her head fall lazy and dazed onto her friend's shoulder, trembling the softest bit with giggles of her own.

  "This ain't gonna go well." Pope was back; bracing himself with a fresh beer and a squinty frown. "Your sister, Iris."

  Her mood soured. "Just ignore her."

  "She's coming over. Look."

  "Ignore her," she gritted out.

  "Hey, Iris." Her sister's so sweet that she left Iris covered in cavities. Expensive perfume and ghosts fill the air. Sarah lingered over her, everything she's even been taught to hate. "Erm—you didn't stay over at Tannyhill, last night."

  Iris didn't meet her eye. "Was busy."

  Sarah's laugh was rasped, fake. "Yeah, hah, I figured. Hi, Kie."

  "Hi." Kiara's contempt almost matched Iris's.

  "Haven't seen you at the regatta lately," she mused.

  "Not really a regatta girl these days. You know that," she retorted drolly.

  Sarah's boyfriend, Topper, snaked an arm around her willowy middle, pulling her so close their bones might fuse. "Let's roll, Sarah."

  Iris's sister hesitated. "No, wait—"

  "Hey, Iris, how's your brother?" Topper asked then, thoughtless or brutish; she couldn't be sure. "I saw him at the country club, earlier. Man, he was wasted."

  "I'm not my brother's keeper, Top."

  "What?" Sarah faltered. "Alex? Topper, you didn't tell me—"

  Topper spared a look, almost like he was confused that she even cared about Alex at all. "Well, no. I didn't think—"

  "He came by earlier," Sarah cut in, turning to Iris. She's losing that softness now. Obstinate, the heels of her sandals dug into the sand, and she had that look in her eyes that their dad got—like she wasn't going to give up any time soon. "To pick Phoebe up. He mentioned that you guys aren't really talking."

  Kiara's pretty face twisted into something mean and so unlike her. "Is this really the time to have that conversation?"

  "Well, it's not like she talks to me any other time! What, Iris?" Sarah demanded, angling herself into Iris's line of vision. "Did you get bored of ignoring us, so you thought you'd turn it on to Alex, too? Who's next—Phoebe?"

  Someone might as well have been dangling a bone in front of JJ, because at the first sniff of trouble, he's there—as mindless and as obedient as an attack dog.

  "Hey, Sarah." It's like he couldn't resist. "Can I offer you a tasty Old Milwaukee beverage?"

  Iris narrowed her eyes at him. He's there, all tall, and blonde, and defensive. The smile he's got was almost mad, and John B flanked him warily.

  "No," said Sarah tightly, "thanks."

  "Oh, c'mon. Not fancy enough for you?" JJ taunted.

  "JJ, leave it," Iris seethed.

  "M'only showing your sister some good ol' pogue hospitality, sunshine," he drawled, the drink his grip capsizing, splashing all sticky onto Sarah's sandals. "Ain't that right?"

  "Here we go," Pope said miserably.

  Topper stepped in, supercilious and sneering. "Hey, man. I'll take it. Thank you, man. I appreciate it."

  Goading, JJ drew the drink back and smirked. "That's nice, Top, but see—I didn't ask you. Now, if you said pretty please, maybe, but you didn't. So."

  "Oh, pretty please?" Topper baited. "Pretty...please?"

  "Yeah, so—Sarah, you can have it."

  JJ barely got the chance to put in front of her again with Topper crowding in, smacking the cup from his hand. The beer splashed out, splattering JJ's face, and the ends of Sarah's hair. Iris's sister staggered back, affronted, but JJ, a provoked hound, rose to the bait. He snatched two fistfuls of Topper's plaid shirt and shoved him backwards.

  "Tell your boyfriend to lay off!" Iris hissed, pushing Sarah away when she nearly trod on Kiara's foot.

  "Yours started it!" she argued, childlike. Like they were girls fighting over dolls again.

  "Wow, real mature. Are you gonna go tell Dad—"

  "Dirty pogues!"

  Iris glanced back at Topper, smirking callously, and to the boys. John B, no longer wrestling JJ away from a fight, rounded on him with a curled, spiteful lip, and she felt her own teeth bare into a nasty smile when she confronted Sarah again.

  "He's done," she told her.

  But her sister's not listening. Knowing as well as Iris what Topper had instigated, she hurried forward, "Babe, babe, babe—"

  John B delivered a sucker-punch to Topper's jaw that looked particularly mean. Certainly mean enough to get the rest of the beach gathering behind them all, jeering and taking out their phones.

  "I knew this would happen," said Pope, panicking. "I knew it. I said—"

  "Bee's just blowing off steam," Iris insisted, downing her drink and dropping the cup to her feet.

  Kie looked at it, crestfallen. "Iris—"

  Topper shoved John B into a tidal pool, leering over him, all menacing and dishevelled hair. Iris was sure he had a screw or two unhinged.

  "Don't make me drown you like your old man."

  "Too fucking far!" Iris yelled, lunging out of the crowd.

  Of course, she didn't make it far. A familiar hand snatched around her arm and hauled her back. Belligerently, she glanced back, and swore her anger doubled.

  "Alex, let go!"

  "No way," he laughed. Arrogantly, he cocked his chin to the shore, where John B and Topper were now full-blown wrestling. "You really wanna be a part of that?"

  Heated, Iris looked back at the fighting boys. It was vicious and evenly-matched. John B was scrappy—he fought with a hunger and arbitrary meanness. Topper's all fierce intensity and well-timed hits, like this was another game to him. It was more than that to John B, and Iris knew it. He felt like he was fighting for his life and has done for the last nine months.

  "He's my friend!" Iris retaliated, still struggling against her brother.

  Alex clenched his jaw. "Then maybe he shouldn't be!"

  "Alex, stop them!" said Sarah desperately.

  Their brother didn't move.

  "You're a coward," sneered Iris, finally wrenching herself free.

  But she didn't run out to help, because when she next turned to the fight, Topper was holding John B by the nape of his neck, and her oldest friend was face-down in a tidal pool, arms thrashing at the water like he was still fighting.

  "He's drowning him," said Pope in horror.

  Kie could only shake her head, blanched.

  "Topper!" Sarah screamed.

  It's the adrenaline, and maybe her sister's desperation, that kicked life back into Iris. She stormed forward, bullheaded and impulsive, shouting Topper's name until her lungs hurt. Only, she didn't reach him. Her feet suddenly felt like they were caught in quicksand, but there's no brotherly hand holding her back—no one's touching her at all. No. JJ's got the butt of a gun against Topper's skull, and his grin was nothing short of manic.

  "Yeah," he said, all low, and hoarse, and him, "you know what that is. Your move, broski."

  Iris's throat tightened.

  "JJ!" Sarah exclaimed. "Put the gun down! Alex, he's got a—"

  Alex was back. His hand's on her shoulder this time. Iris didn't fight. "Iris, we're leaving."

  "Did you say something, princess?" JJ sneered.

  Topper's hands, shaky, lift to face JJ's mercy. Iris wasn't so sure that she wanted him to grant it.

  The crowd's scattering around them, and Iris felt shoulders brush past her. They belonged to Pope, Kiara, maybe even Magda—so did, she assumed, the voices that try and lull John B out of his unconscious slump as he sagged bonelessly into the shallows.

  "Kie, can you check your psycho friend, please?" her sister's chewing out behind her.

  "Okay, everyone, listen up!" JJ bellowed. Iris's eyes raked over him, hollowed out in the weirdest way she's ever felt—his golden hair all windswept, wifebeater flecked in speckles of salty damp from the sea, and the gun, firing two bullets into the night sky. "Get the hell off our side of the island!"

  "Maybank, are you fucking stupid?" Alex snarled, letting go of Iris to push him square in the chest.

  "Hey, leave him alone!" Iris intervened, standing between them. The resentment in him belongs to her—she's sick of him burying it in other things and not just admitting it to her. "Topper was drowning him! You just stood there—you didn't do anything!"

  "And your little boyfriend's best idea is to pull out a gun?" he challenged, throwing an arm in JJ's way. "Do you even have a permit for that thing, Maybank?"

  JJ glared at him venomously. "Fuck off, Princeton. This island ain't yours no more."

  "Oh, real mature—"

  "Can you quit fighting with the sixteen-year-olds?" Magda bit. They all turn. She was knee-deep in the tidal, John B in her lap, half-awake as he fragilely touched his fingertips to the swelling contusion over his eye. Kiara and Pope, both frightened and shaky, kneel either side of her. "We gotta get him home. Now."

  "He needs to go to the hospital," said Alex, stomach turning at the sight of the black eye and split lip.

  "Not all of us have rich daddies to pay for our medical insurance, Cameron," she seethed.

  Iris didn't miss the way her brother flinched.

  A little less shaken, she finally looked around at the boneyard. Everyone else was gone. Sarah was gone. She felt as though two hands were wrapped around her throat.

  "Did you come in the Twinkie?" Magda asked her brother. Pope absently nodded, but his eyes were on John B—almost unblinking. "All right. I'll drive, 'come back for my car in the morning. Maybank."

  JJ had been pacing along the shore, gun as limp as a dead bird in his white-knuckled hold. He now stared at Magda with blown, doleful eyes, and Iris knew what it meant. It might kill him if Magda looked at him now any differently. She cares for them all in a way that JJ didn't really know until he met her—motherly, Iris figured. It's suffocating sometimes, how much she doted on them, but JJ liked the feeling of being gnawed through and strangled when it was by her. So tender-handed when she stitched him up. So devoted as she set the table with the best meal they've had in months. The fear in him was incessant.

  And misplaced.

  "You and Alex can help him back to the van. Yeah?" Her eyes dragged over to Iris's brother. "If you can manage that, Cameron."

  Alex and JJ said nothing as they waded through the water, hauling John B out of Magda's lap. They shouldered an arm each, and both steal a glimpse at Iris as they stagger by. She wasn't really sure what to make of either.

  Kiara, still trembling, helped Magda to her feet.

  Pope swayed, disconcerted. "Why didn't you ask me to help carry John B?"

  "Because you look like you're gonna chunder." Magda walked over to Iris. The hand she laid on her shoulder was a welcomed weight. "Hey. You good, Irie?"

  "M'alright." She blinked, dazed. "M'good."

  Magda tentatively patted her cheek. "Okay. Good. Let's get you all home."

a/n: indecisive about this one. there's elements i like (e.g. alexmagda & iris being lowkey a freak for jj with a gun...) and elements i don't (the rest). but. we're nearly done with ep.1 - it only took eight chapters. 🤦‍♀️ also!!! new character unlocked: Tabitha Cross! aka, the main oc of my rafe cameron fic, Kintsugi, which up now if you wanna check it out. it'll feature magda more than this story will, if u dig her as much as i do—alex too. it's def more about the "older siblings" lot, whilst this fic is very iris & the pogues centric.

anyways, i hope u enjoyed this slight mess of a chap. we'll round off ep 1 in the next!!! lots of love, dani x